Social Watch is an international network of citizens’ organizations in the struggle to eradicate poverty and the causes of poverty, to end all forms of discrimination and racism, to ensure an equitable distribution of wealth and the realization of human rights.

Social Watch holds governments, the UN system and international organizations accountable for the fulfilment of national, regional and international commitments to eradicate poverty.

The Gender Equity Index 2009 computed by Social Watch shows that the gender gap is not narrowing in most countries and a majority of the countries that show progress are those that were already comparatively better. The distance between the countries and regions in the better and worse relative situations has widened in the last years. In education and economic activity the situation of women has globally improved, but when it comes to empowerment some 15% of countries have regressed over the past year, and this has been so severe that the average global value of this indicator fell from 35% in 2008 to 34.5% in 2009.

To find out more about the Three Gaps:

Three_Gaps_GEI-2009.pdf